| [Jun. 12th, 2009|12:17 am] |
It was full dark by the time they got underway--Tsume'd had no idea how much it took to get a ship ready--and the moon was high when she woke from her nap belowdecks.
Next to Asuma.
She couldn't decide which was more disturbing: falling asleep alone and waking with a partner, or not waking up when he'd come in.
Quietly, Tsume crept out past him and headed up the stairs--what passed for stairs--clutching the rail the whole way. Napping didn't make for sea legs, that was the truth.
The moon shed enough light to see what looked like the whole world, stretched out into the horizon in glittering blue. She knew it was an optical illusion, that there was land not far away, but it still felt disturbingly lonely. Tsume liked the earth. Liked trees and forests and the solidity of ground beneath her feet.
Even the planks that made their floating island didn't seem stable, no matter how big the trees they'd come from. They rocked and moved, unpredictable and off-kilter. All the scents were wrong. Salt and fish, the world pregnant with water, water itself teeming with sea life. The men smelled like they'd been made of coral and seaweed instead of the heavy, green scent of land.
Then she caught something familiar, and turned to watch Asuma come out of the bowels of the hold. Starlight turned his skin ghostly, dyed his hair so dark it matched the night, and twisted the white armor into the disfigured skeleton of a man. The ANBU tattoo absorbed light, shining black against his pale skin.
He looked like he knew how to stand a deck. That frog-eating blood tick.
"Well, it's official," Tsume muttered, looking back out over the ocean. "I can't track across water."
Which was about the time the captain showed up. Tsume eyed him suspiciously. He always smelled faintly of arousal. It was disconcerting. |
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